


yank it by the roots

by erzi



Category: Sarai-ya Goyou | House of Five Leaves
Genre: M/M, Manga Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 06:23:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20223265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erzi/pseuds/erzi
Summary: Edo was a good a place as any to remain in. Here Yaichi has made his life – if it could be called that – lounging, drinking. Kidnapping. The ryo the Five Leaves earn glints prettily, and it's easy to exchange the money for debauchery. It is not as easy to say he gets joy from any of it.Then comes the samurai.





	yank it by the roots

A tree needs little to live: sunlight, soil, water, air. With these provided it will settle down its roots and grow.

Seinoshin is no tree, but he's got the barest things he needs to live as well, and so he calls this estate home. There is food and drink, brought in and out by the servants. He has a roof over his head with a fence to ward off the evils of the world. And he has Yaichi. His family may also call this place home, but he knows what he is to them. It's fine. Let them despise his existence and the mark upon his back. He has Yaichi. It's fine.

He stands at the base of the back garden's maple, mindful of its roots. He slowly looks up: its trunk gnarled and winding like a road, destination the heavens; its leaves reaching for that very distant place, their green glowing gold where the sun strikes them. Come autumn, their red will bleed in to match the mark on his back. The tree and himself will be more alike then. 

* * *

Seinoshin strips himself of his name, peeling it off like the rotted bark it is. Revealed behind it: 'Yaichi.' It should be fresh and new, this layer under his past, but it's only marginally better than what he has willingly lost. The name is etched onto his bones like a growth ring. It swells each year he is immersed in this deception, assuming a dead man's name.

He wouldn't call what he undergoes 'growth.' He ages, yes, and his arms gain wiry strength, but the blood that squelches under his feet does not nourish him. His height stagnates. His eyes dull. His mind harbors nothing at all.

He walks on. 

* * *

Edo was a good a place as any to remain in. Here Yaichi has made his life – if it could be called that – lounging, drinking. Kidnapping. The ryo the Five Leaves earn glints prettily, and it's easy to exchange the money for debauchery. It is not as easy to say he gets joy from any of it.

Then comes the samurai.

Masa reminds Yaichi of a kitten: limbs too delicate to support its weight, eyes brimming with innocence, and generally useless. He possesses swords and somehow has no bite to him. Precisely for that, Yaichi keeps him around. It's amusing to see him, mess that he is, and wonder what he could change into. He's been insulated, this Masa. What a sight it would be to watch him earn his claws. The world is nastier than he can fathom it and by keeping him around he is exposed to what Yaichi has experienced, what has made him thus.

Yaichi sees how the light glitters off Masa's insufferably pure transparency. He probes him with the pointed stick ends of his words and awaits his reactions; he will take this pretty thing and ruin it, corrupt as he has become himself. Because no one could be this inherently good. Not forever.

* * *

Masa trots at his heels, asks after him, _worries_ about him. It's sickening. Yaichi was supposed to be the one who changed him, but it's happened the other way around. Seeds of doubt were planted in Yaichi's heart long ago, but with Masa here, impossibly kind, they have sprouted and trapped him in their tendrils, depriving him of air, sending his thoughts to a place he had forbidden himself.

Of course Yaichi hates Masa reminding him of what he's become. Of course Yaichi hates Masa's enviable earnestness and what it is doing to him. But he does not hate Masa. He only hates that, somehow, he can't let him go.

Perhaps to uproot Masa he first needs to uproot himself. 

* * *

The human body is terribly weak and the human spirit terribly trusting. Killing Monji is over before his heart has the chance to beat once more. Yaichi wipes the blood from his dagger and sheaths it, feeling nothing.

But the consequences.

He'd done a commendable job of ignoring the future – the present is all that matters; it is the lesson he has sought to perfect his entire life – when that brat opens his mouth and dares to speak of the consequences. Of what Masa will think and do when he is told of this.

"I won't talk," the brat says, and Yaichi hears a smirk in it that mirrors the one he tends to brandish like a blade.

The kid isn't lying. He's been observing them like a cat might watch others in the territory it desires; to obtain his goal, he must stay, and to stay he must keep mum. Still, Yaichi wonders. His life with a Masa-shaped absence. The life he'd led for a long time.

He can't remember how it looked like. Pathetic. 

* * *

Space. A tree also needs space to grow. Too many gathered at one place and the competition proves too great, their growth stunted, if it happens at all.

Yaichi makes his own space. Distance, really. A distance so wide and constantly changing that none may find him. He does this physically, at least, because the space inside his head is shrinking, suffocating him by the day, the things he'd left behind shooting up through the cracks of the person he'd decided to become.

There is supposed to be comfort in being far from everyone.

Suppositions have proved useless, as of late.

The shoots grow, past tangling with the present. With the picture of Masa he carries in his mind. Despite the churning in his gut he can't so much as think _I'm sorry_. 

* * *

The past catches up to him. If he is honest with himself, it was bound to. Part of him had accepted it. The end it would signify.

But. Masa glides in front of him, taller than a mountain, arm jutted out protectively, his life for the false one Yaichi has presented, the one Masa knows is false. Yet he glides in front of him. Though the moonlight is wane Yaichi's eyes widen enough that it burns him.

"Please run," Masa says, silk in the black of night, soundlessly drawing his sword.

And then it is the present, donning samurai attire, that flings itself with full force at him with but an observation: that it is he, Yaichi-not-Yaichi, who cannot let go of what was.

As soon as Yaichi hits Masa he regrets it, erratic heart wormed to his mouth. It was spur-of-the-moment, his branches violent in the wind that's chased him his whole life lashing out to whoever is near – even those who are near because it is where they choose to be – and drawing blood.

Masa takes it, the blood creeping down his impassive face, voice unbelievably steady. Yaichi's horror at his own actions and at how subtly this fragile bud of a man has blossomed keeps his tongue pressed between his teeth.

When Masa says the name he'd claimed for himself as it was meant to be used – the real Yaichi, earth and stone piled over his corpse – everything he has built crumbles. He runs away. He can do this because he has no roots. 

* * *

Yaichi runs and trips over what's become of himself. Of what is coming. He doesn't hesitate to kill again; he has to protect what he has before Death puts a hand on his shoulder. Because one day he will die, but he will fight before he lets it happen this way.

Masa sees this time: the blood still warm on the floor, the blade gripped in his hand.

_Ah_, Yaichi thinks, somewhere hazy past the vomit-inducing fear, self-hatred, whatever it is. _This is how __we __end._

"Was this really necessary?" Masa says instead. No condemnation, no look of disgust. There is concern, gut-wrenchingly sincere, in those eyes of his. Yaichi is a murderer and what Masa wants to know is if he was in the right.

He runs again.

Meets the past. Inescapable, isn't it?

"You should get away from him while you can," the past tells Masa, who'd chased after him.

In distancing himself, it's what Yaichi had been trying to get Masa to do, ignoring contradictory wishes flitting in the back of his head. To hear it suggested from another's mouth – from another who knew him once – is more retribution than his death could be.

A century passes in the span of a second as Yaichi waits for Masa to abandon him so he may meet his fate.

A hand grasps his wrist, withered thin, and Masa is yelling, "We must run!"

We.

"We should head toward town."

We.

"We cannot outrun them in any case."

_We_. With Masa drawing his sword, standing as devout to his creed as Yaichi has ever seen him, assuming the stance of the warrior he was striving to be. Wielding the blade with cold grace, blood spilling on the forest floor. Quick as that, he has killed. He turns to Yaichi, and there is blood on his face, too.

Since their first meeting, Yaichi had pushed Masa to see how far he could go. This is too much. Yaichi had done nothing to incite this and with the acidic guilt of one who has he wishes he could take it all back, if to prevent this moment.

Futile, of course. By entangling Masa in his schemes, this too was going to happen.

Masa has every right to hate him and cut himself off from the world he's been dragged to. Yaichi listens to Masa berate him, listens and swallows nothing when Masa says he disdains him, listens and doesn't think he has listened right when Masa says despite it all it is Yaichi he will follow.

They are in too deep. He lets Masa pull him up so they may brave this. 

* * *

The ropes Yaichi is bound in chafe his skin over the thin barrier of his clothes. He's lost feeling in his arms, tugged behind him, and his legs, curled under him. He's been given food and water, minimally, but they have been given. He may live yet.

When not barraged by questions gone unanswered or prompted to speak by the hilt of a sword, he thinks. He'd done a lot of thinking when he knew the gang was hunting him, but it wasn't along these lines. He'd given up on himself then, wondered if dying would be the answer to his life's puzzle.

It wasn't. He's aware of this now. To live out his days, alone in the dark of a jail cell, with the weight of his sins on his shoulders – that was the answer. Tucked away, not quite living but not quite dead.

He holds on to the truth that it was Masa who'd pleaded for the law's sword to be removed from his neck. Surely even he can be allowed this. He may decay, but he will make this truth his core.

He is marked not by nature but by man – an outcast for all to witness, to hear as he is flogged the details of his crimes, traveling well through Edo so all will know he is not to return. He'll drift again, he decides between the whip's cracks splitting the air and his skin. He should have expected this. The mark on his shoulder is a leaf, not roots; the name he'd been granted defied him of a place to belong, and everything that had followed because of it was to be expected.

"Go now," he is told.

He goes. His legs are close to betraying him, and he leans his weight against the bridge, every step forward a struggle, the newly formed scars on his back pulsing hotly, the pain stealing some of his concentration, but not his newfound reality: nothing is left to him but the clothes on his back.

_Focus_, he tells himself. One step at a time. First he will leave Edo and all the memories scattered there like seeds. Then he will worry about what is next. One step at a time. Eyes firmly ahead; the last of his pride and dignity will not let him bow his head.

He reaches the bridge's apex, the highest point on its gentle slope, and where his eyes fall at its end stands Masa, petty belongings in tow, with a smile that weakens Yaichi worse than his imprisonment had. It's an expectant smile. A forgiving smile. An I-am-here-for-the-rest-of-time smile. As he tells him, word by precious word.

Part of Yaichi curses him for a fool. Masa has abandoned his past – as Yaichi had pretended, among other things, that it was the wisest path for a man to tread – when he'd been terrifyingly close to amending it and making it his future. He'd actually _had_ something, and he's tossed it aside.

The overwhelming part of Yaichi, though, wants nothing more than to be swept away by the promise of a life together, with the rest of the Five Leaves, somewhere in the west. Remaking all of their lives so they may settle their roots deep in the softness of the earth for good.

Masa offers him an arm for support. Now it is he who will lead him on this journey.

Yaichi takes it. 

* * *

He has food, ever Ume's expertise. Water, fresh from the well they'd dug, or, more often than not, sake poured by Okinu with not a drop spilled. He has a roof over his head, a shabby little thing they'd fixed up to house them all. He has around him the same people with whom he'd truly begun his life as Yaichi – and then some.

He has a home.

It had been fortuitous that this place had a maple in the back garden. Drinking sake on the engawa, he eyes it. The leaves are beginning to change color, red infusing their veins like the threads of fate are embedded within them. It _is _their fate to do this yearly. Live and die, green to red, until the tree that houses them falls itself.

He idly rubs his left shoulder.

"Are your scars hurting?"

The wood thumps as Masa sits beside him, posture perfect, head high but turned in Yaichi's direction with worry.

"No," Yaichi replies, putting his hand on his lap. "I wasn't thinking about what I was doing." He glances at Masa again. Finally he carries himself with the air of a samurai, and he no longer has a sword to his name. Or a name, really. He is simply Masa.

Masa nods, apparently satisfied with his answer, and looks to the maple tree. "I can hardly believe it is autumn already."

Neither can Yaichi. The seasons had birthed one another as their quiet days remained. Change in the background of established tranquility.

"Is it your favorite season?" Masa asks him.

Yaichi hums, thinking. "I don't think I have a favorite season. Is it yours, perhaps?"

"It is. I used to think all the seasons nice in their own ways – and I still do – but autumn is what I always look forward to."

"Really?" He raises an eyebrow, amused. "Why?"

"Is it not obvious?" Masa's smile is warmer than the sun of summer. "It reminds me of you."

Coming from anyone else would have earned them a smile verging on insolence. But this is Masa, and Yaichi knows he means it with a conviction few people could ever come close to genuinely feeling. "For my scar or for the group?" he says, lip quirked up.

"Both. But it is mainly for your scar."

"You barely ever see it."

"I remember it quite well." And here is where a trace of the old Masa makes his reappearance, with a dusting of pink on his cheeks. "Because it is quite striking. If you will allow my saying so."

"You've gone ahead and said it anyway," Yaichi says, sipping his sake past a smirk.

"Ah. I have..."

"I didn't mind it." It makes him remember the real Yaichi's words. He had trusted in them as a child would a beloved adult. He trusts in them now as an adult who loves another. He tries on a smile to go with Masa's. "Do you want to see it again?"

Masa startles. "I-"

Yaichi's robe whispers as he slides it down, shoulder visible, skin chilling from the sudden exposure to the weather. To Masa, like this. "There," he says, with more calm than is true.

The hitch in Masa's breath speaks of something intimate in this moment, perhaps something forbidden.

Yaichi huffs a laugh out his nose. Intimate – yes, this is why he has done it. But forbidden? Masa doesn't know because Yaichi has not said so aloud, but he'd slip the entire robe off if he asked. He's hoping for it, eventually. Masa waited for him, and he will wait in turn.

Masa raises a hand toward him, but holds himself back. "May I touch it?" he asks, quietly.

Without a word Yaichi grabs Masa's hand and places it over the scar, skin tingling the more from making the contact physical. He thinks Masa might trace the five-pointed pattern, but he simply keeps his hand to it as if to protect it. Though Yaichi does feel his eyes on what is visible of the scars the whip had inflicted. By time, they have faded, but Yaichi carries the pain in his memory and Masa the knowledge of it.

"Does this scar ever hurt?" Masa says.

Yaichi shakes his head. "Just the others. And it's rare." At night, usually, when a bloody nightmare roils in his mind, a thing once real confined within his head for eternal punishment.

Masa takes his hand away, too soon. It would always have been too soon. "If that should change, please let me know."

"I will," he says. It's no lie. This much he can say. Just as he can brazenly add, "I'm going to rest on you." And then doing exactly that, leaning down to put his head on Masa's lap.

At least Masa doesn't jump at his touch as he once might have. Instead, he looks down at him, perplexed. Chivalrous he is with all the obliviousness to accompany it. "Yaichi-dono? Are you tired?"

"A bit."

"Then you should sleep in your proper futon-"

"No," he says. "This is where I want to be." He does not let go of Masa's gaze, hoping he parses his meaning.

"Are you certain? I cannot be so comfortable."

"You are, Masa." He turns his head aside, cheek to Masa's thigh. "It's past time you only call me 'Yaichi.'"

He feels Masa's legs stiffen. "I cannot do that. I swore to protect you; to address you in such a manner-"

"-is what I want." He places a hand flat on Masa's thigh, smoothing the wrinkles from his robe. "Are you going to go against the wishes of the person you're protecting?"

That silences Masa.

Yaichi laughs to himself, head tilted back to look at him, finding a pout tugging Masa's lip down. A familiar sight. It gets another laugh from him: softened, fond. "Don't pout. One of these days you're going to kiss me, and I don't want you making a habit of twisting your mouth like that. It'd be a terrible kiss."

The pout disappears, replaced by Masa's mouth parting in complete surprise. There is pink on his face once more. "I will what?"

"I'm going to sleep," Yaichi says, turning his head, closing his eyes. He can picture Masa's helpless expression, and it brings a smile to him.

The maple's leaves rustle in a puff of a breeze, undaunted in their place on the tree.

**Author's Note:**

> i think i've used up my tree metaphor allowance for the rest of my life


End file.
